With rapid development of wireless communications technologies, mobile Internet technologies, and intelligent mobile terminal technologies, there is an increasing demand for wireless positioning services, and wireless positioning technologies are attracting increasing attention.
A method for positioning a to-be-positioned terminal using a wireless positioning technology may be summarized as follows. A to-be-positioned terminal executes a positioning packet interaction procedure with each anchor (that is, a node having a known position) to obtain positioning support information, and then a position of the to-be-positioned terminal is determined according to the positioning support information and a positioning algorithm. The positioning support information is information related to the positioning algorithm and used to implement positioning. For example, if the positioning algorithm is a time of arrival (TOA) the positioning support information may be a travel time or a travel distance of a signal between the to-be-positioned terminal and an anchor. If the positioning algorithm is an angle of arrival (AOA), the positioning support information may be an AOA of a signal from the to-be-positioned terminal to an anchor, an AOA of a signal from an anchor to the to-be-positioned terminal, or the like.
In the foregoing positioning process, if there is no obstacle between the to-be-positioned terminal and an anchor, a communication channel between the anchor and the to-be-positioned terminal is a line of sight (LOS) channel. If there is an obstacle between the to-be-positioned terminal and an anchor, a communication channel between the anchor and the to-be-positioned terminal is an non LOS (NLOS) channel. A wireless signal between the anchor and the to-be-positioned terminal may be severely attenuated and reflected in a transmission process. Consequently, positioning support information obtained in a process in which the to-be-positioned terminal executes a positioning packet interaction procedure with the anchor is inaccurate, and a finally obtained positioning result is inaccurate. Precision of positioning support information obtained based on an NLOS channel is lower than that of positioning support information obtained based on a LOS channel. Because it is quite common that during actual implementation, there is an obstacle between a to-be-positioned terminal and an anchor, a finally obtained positioning result is inaccurate.
In addition, capabilities of different to-be-positioned terminals to communicate with an anchor are different. In some scenarios in which a network environment is not quite favorable, a to-be-positioned terminal having a relatively favorable capability to communicate with an anchor can obtain a relatively accurate positioning result while a to-be-positioned terminal having a relatively poor capability to communicate with an anchor obtains an inaccurate positioning result.